


The Vanaheim Protection Force

by Animefangirl365



Category: Sword Art Online
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-19
Updated: 2017-10-19
Packaged: 2019-01-20 00:26:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12421275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Animefangirl365/pseuds/Animefangirl365
Summary: In the year 2024, scientists finally released Full-Dive technology and a new game, Vanaheim, to the public. Twelve years after the anime Sword Art Online began, and two years after the series’ prophesied ‘doomsday’, no one expected a repeat of the events documented. No one thought that the 10,000 copies released were a direct invitation to a modern and very real death trap. In a world where wielding a blade is as easy as buying a pencil, players turn on other players. When people lose their morals and kill without conscience, who will stop them? This is the story of an innocent piece of fiction made into reality, and one guild that will do whatever it takes to save innocent players from those gone mad.Basically; we know SAO had prisons for player killers. This is the force behind those locations if the SAO incident happens in our future.





	The Vanaheim Protection Force

**Author's Note:**

> This idea sprung into my head after rewatching the SAO series, which came after watching the Ordinal Scale movie at one of the one-night showings back in March. I’ve been sitting on this ever since, and forgot to post it. I’ll try writing more if you like it, if not this will just be a standalone thing.

 

_ [Monday, February 28th, 2028. Portland, Oregon, USA] _

“My name is Brenda, and I’ve been assigned to your case. I want you to introduce yourself to me.”

 

I looked from my shoes up to the counselor’s face.

 

“Rose Smith. I logged into Vanaheim on Friday, September 13, 2024. I know it was a Friday, because I found it funny it was the ‘unlucky’ Friday the thirteenth.”

 

“What was your life like in the game? Did you have any friends?”

 

“I was the Vice-Commander of a guild called the Vanaheim Protection Force. Most guilds aimed for specific trades, leveling up, or joining the front lines. We made our goal to stop as many red players and their guilds as possible.”

 

“What is a red player?”

 

“A player killer. In an ordinary MMORPG, this isn’t bad. It pisses people off, but it’s not a crime. In Vanaheim, and its primary source, Sword Art Online, though, it is very bad. Players who lost all their health in game died in the real world. So, we decided to stop them. We thought… we thought the prisons would be enough. Instead, they… we had to…”

 

I pulled my legs up to my chest, using my arms to help since my muscles still hadn’t recovered from the severe atrophy yet.

 

“ _ I killed them. _ ”

 

“Who hurt someone first?”

I sighed. “They did. But… those players; those  _ people _ . Their lives were in my hands. Killers or not, I should’ve found a solution without more killing.”

 

“Why don’t you explain to me everything, from the beginning.”

 

_ [Friday, September 13, 2024. First floor of Vanaheim.] _

 

“Many of you may realize the similarities between this game and the fictional game Sword Art Online. You would be right. I designed this world with the plan of making Sword Art Online a reality. Do not be fooled; Locations, tactics, and names will not be the same. You will not find Illfang the Kobold Lord in the North East quadrant of this floor. Nor will you meet The Skull Reaper on Floor 75. No one player will have a single advantage over another. Good luck.”

 

My knees wobbled. I could feel the virtual tears pooling in my eyes. I was a fool. A damned fool. Reki Kawahara predicted this exact incident; or maybe he caused it. Did that even matter now? No, it didn’t. What mattered was that I was stuck here. I made the dumb move of buying the stupid headset to play this game, I bought a copy as soon as I could, and now I was doomed to a death game.

 

“Shit.” I turned my head. There, in what was apparently her real appearance, stood a girl with mouse-brown hair that fell to her waist, a simple tunic that we all started with, and an ugly grimace on her lips. She must have noticed me staring, because she turned to look at me. Her face relaxed, probably to not frighten me even more. “Hey, are you alright?” I raised an eyebrow and said, “Well, considering I’m probably never going to wake up in my real body again, probably not. Don’t really know at this point. Mostly I’m just shocked I was still dumb enough to walk right into this trap.”

 

She lowered her eyes to her shoes. “You too, huh? I wonder how many of us watched the series back then, and still came here?” I shrugged. She sighed. “Well, let’s go then. The stronger we get, the longer we get to survive.” She opened her menu and fired off the friend request. I quickly scanned the display for her name. “Reyna, huh?” She smiled. “I found the name in a book a few years ago. I like it.” I smiled back and hit accept. Her eyes tracked to the upper left, probably looking at the party column. “Kiara, it’s nice to meet you.”

 

_ [Thursday, October 31, 2024. Vanaheim, Floor 4] _

 

“Reyna… look.”

 

Her eyes tracked to my hand, and then to where I was pointing. Ten meters away, two players; one with an orange cursor, one green, were caught in an altercation. We glanced at each other and then set off in a run.

 

Blades in hand, we blocked another swing from the attacking player’s sword. Reyna took forward, and I waited to see if she needed my help. Since the orange player hit Reyna first, the system registered every returned strike as self defense; we found that out after the first week of the game, when another one attacked us. She gave up after I turned the tables and took her health down into the high end of the red zone.

 

However, this time, that wasn’t the case. Despite only a sliver of color left in the floating HP bar, this assailant continued plunging for fatal strikes at Reyna’s avatar. He didn’t surrender.

 

_ [Monday, February 28th, 2028. Portland, Oregon, USA] _

 

“His character name was Rokuro. I don’t know his real name. But… in that world, defending your life is no different than in this one. Reyna knew how to defend herself. She had been trained to know the difference between when it is possible to subdue an opponent without killing them, and when it isn’t. And that’s when we decided to make the guild.”

 

_ [Tuesday, November 5, 2024. Vanaheim, Floor 3] _

 

“Are you sure these fliers will work, Kiara?”

 

I nodded. “Well enough. After all, the Knights of the Blood Oath started small too.” Reyna smiled.

 

I turned to a nearby player. “Would you like to join our guild? It is an anti-PK guild.” I extended the flier in my hand. He glanced at my face, then to the flier, and accepted the paper. He skimmed the page. “Anti-PK, you say? I watched Sword Art Online. I know they had prisons. But before I spend my time on this, I want you to explain to me how this isn’t a flight of fancy.” I smiled. 

 

“We’ll first have to start like any guild does; go on quests, level up, get equipment, and earn money. Then, we’ll be able to buy a building; a prison, of sorts. There, player killers will be held under secure guard until the game ends. Our members will all have recording devices, but thankfully you don’t have to pay for them. Every member will have to record everything they do at all times. The first outcome, preferably, would be successfully arresting the player. The least favorable, if detaining the criminal proves impossible, will be to kill the player. Exactly like the real world police are intended to do. The member, or officer, as we may as well call them, will temporarily stop the recording as soon as any player’s health is depleted completely by their hand, and resumed a moment later. That will make it easier to find the moment under investigation. The recording, which does save to the player’s local data as well, will serve to prevent as much corruption as possible. If a guild member kills a PKer without recording it, they will automatically be removed from the guild. We cannot afford to have players questioning our authority. Each kill will also be available to access by any player who asks for it; no fees, no special permissions needed. If they doubt a death committed by our guild, they have every right to investigate. Those are the tactics we will implement for our anti-PK guild.”

 

The player I just rattled off our methods to stood there with a wide-eyed expression of awe. He switched the flier to his left hand and extended his right, reaching for a handshake. I returned it, and he happily announced, “I thought it was just a pipe dream when you first spoke up. You’re completely serious about this, and I would be honored to join your guild, and I’m sure others will too. My name is Kurasaki.” I nodded. “Mine is Kiara, and this is Reyna. Welcome to our guild.”

 

_ [Monday, February 3, 2025. Vanaheim, Floor 20] _

 

My eyes tracked over the words on the digital newspaper. The assault team had their feet under them, and had now cleared the 27th floor after nearly five months in the game. Reyna and I had bought a large enough building to serve as headquarters for the Vanaheim Protection Force. We had nearly fifty members now, and all of us had strength comparable to some members on the front lines; we had to, if we were supposed to be taking out player killers. We had already stopped three PK guilds and over two dozen lone killers, only 17 of whom were successfully arrested. The rest continued attacking until their form shattered into multi-colored shards. 

 

We had three members go rogue last month, but as promised, their lack of recordings had them terminated from our ranks. Two days later they made an assault on the guild; none of them surrendered. It was hard on all of us. Every member was forced to take a week off to go to the child care center on Floor 1; not quite an orphanage, since some of their parents were in game and still alive. Those children were our reason to keep as many people alive as we could. Marissa spent her week cradling her son that had logged in with her. He was eight, and she still cries herself to sleep at night because she had brought him into this world where she could leave him alone at any moment. Reyna told them about her favorite fictional worlds growing up. They watched in wide-eyed wonder as she mimed spells from Harry Potter, exuberantly recounted Percy Jackson’s adventures, and told them about the Black Swordsman. It gave them hope to know that these heroes could triumph through adversity.

 

As for me, I spent my time having the children tell me about their lives in the real world. Their moms and dads, siblings, their favorite subjects, and things to eat. I didn’t want them to forget those things.

 

Now, we had begun sending scouts to every town on every floor, searching for any whispers on the wind of another killer. Kurasaki, the first player we met, had proved essential in organizing our preemptive strikes. It turns out, his dad was actually on a Cyber Sexual Assault Prevention squad in the real world, and he had picked up on how to find crimes before they happened. He knew how to spot a criminal and how to complete an inquiry without suspicion - a training course we all went through under his tutelage.

 

_ [Wednesday, May 23, 2026. Vanaheim, Floor 20] _

 

“Why don’t people understand that we’ll just stop them? Honestly - they might as well stop trying to build ranks, ‘cuz we just break them apart every time.”

 

Reyna nodded. “It would make our lives easier if we never had to break apart such groups in the first place. Oh, well.”

 

A thundering of footsteps came echoing down the hall. Kurasaki pushed through the doors and bent over, chest heaving with labored breaths. “I came as fast as I could. It’s - it’s bad, guys. You know how we thought that those eight groups from the last two months were are separate? Guess what. They’re not.” He swiped his hand across the menu and transferred his map to the table. He swiped a few more times, pointing at different markers of small camps we had identified and disbanded. “All of these - they’re organized by one person. No one knows what they look like, no one knows their gender, either. At least no one stupid enough to open their mouths. But I recently found out that there is this monarch, the organizer, of all these little groups. What I do know, is that they’re stationed here - ” He pinched and pulled the map, revealing an underground cave system on Floor 68, right below the boss room location. “We have to stop them. They have organized every single PK - guilds, parties, and lone members targeted on purpose -  since July of last year. They’ve even gone after members of the assault team - and won.”

 

_ [Friday, May 25, 2026] _

 

After a hard, long day, we had finally reached the main chambers of the underground headquarters.

 

We lost 6 people in that fight, but took out over 30 player killers; red members who laughed as they slaughtered.

 

One team was sent to find the leader. They would be back soon.

 

Five minutes later, we heard scuffling and mumbles from one of the main corridors. The small team had returned; their target bound with their head covered. Reyna stood from her seat and walked towards the figure.

 

She reached a hand, grabbed the fabric, and pulled -

 

When she saw the face, she leapt back as if burned.

 

“...Oliver? Wh- what the hell are you doing here?! I thought - you said you didn’t manage to get a copy, I- wha.. you… you’re the one who killed all those people?! One thousand people are DEAD because of you!!”

 

A deep chuckle left the man’s mouth. “Always so overdramatic, Maddie. You definitely got that from dad.” Reyna’s - no, Maddie’s - shoulders shook. “ _ Overdramatic _ ??! DAMNIT Oliver! I knew you were cold, but this - this has gone too far. You’re not my brother - not anymore. You stopped being my brother when you picked up a blade to hurt an innocent person. No - sooner than that. I don’t know when it happened, but somewhere, my brother died in here. You’re not him anymore.”

 

He smirked. “What, going to kill me? You don’t have what it takes. Everyone else until now was a new face, an unknown, a stranger. How will you look dad - or even mom - in the eye if you kill me here? They’ll never forgive you. So how about you run away like you always do, eh?”

 

Reyna steadied her sword. “I haven’t run away in nearly two years. I refuse to run away anymore. And if dad and mom blame me for killing a monster, then they’re just as demonic as you are.” She cut three long gashes across his body, and thrust her sword through his abdomen. We watched, as his life depleted - low green, yellow, red - empty.

 

His avatar shattered into crystalline pieces and scattered on the ground before vanishing.   


 

**Well, that's all I got so far. If enough people liked that, I'll give it a try to continue this. Until next time, byee!**  



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